5. Football, Basketball or Entertainer?

We finally moved to our own house at 212 South Wheatland Ave. in the spring of 1965.

(212 S. Wheatland Ave.)

My brother, little sisters and I were thrilled that at last we had our own back yard. There was even an apple tree in the back yard that the previous owner had mended different apple branches onto so the tree had 4 kinds of apples on it. I had a dog my uncle Howard brought up from St. Louis the previous winter that I named “Blacky”! He was a Blue Tick, I think that’s how you spell it. But anyway he was a good dog and followed me everywhere I went. He was very smart and to me he was like a close friend that understood me somehow even if he was a dog, he seemed to empathize with my emotional state where people could not or did not whichever the case may have been.

(Alice and Blacky)

One morning that spring me and my little brother Timmy were out playing in the front yard in our little furry coats my mom had gotten us and along comes this guy I had never seen in the neighborhood before. He was looking real mean as if he were going to say something crazy! He walks up to me and asked, “What would you do if I hit your little brother”? I responded like a total coward! I said, “I’m not allowed to fight guys bigger than me!” God, I’ve regretted that over and over throughout my life and I still to this day it can make me feel so worthless over that! Anyway, he get’s down on his knees and say’s, “I’m not bigger than you now!” I was at a complete loss, my little brother had just seen me cower in spite of a threat on him! I can’t quite remember how I got out of that one or how it ended except the guy whose name happened to be “Guy Monroe” walked off with a sneer and snicker knowing I would never be a threat to him and that he could pretty much have his way around my neck of the woods..

I was no more than 11 years old at the time, and I eventually ran into Guy again at school in September. We used to play this game with a football out in the field called, “Smear the queer!” The object of the game was to catch the ball from a guy who had made goal without being tackled in the mud! You guessed it, Guy Monroe was that un-tackled kid and everybody at school was trying him out to see how close they could get in the domination game. I was out in the field with the rest of the kids trying to find where I ranked and yelling Guy, Guy, with my hands in the air acting like I wanted to receive a pass that would make me the queer that got smeared or either a triumphant big dog goal maker! (Fat chance)! I was only trying to fit in and to tell the truth I was faking it! I never thought he’d throw me the stupid ball but he did! “Damn!”, “&*@#! I was holding the ball and about to be creamed by 20 or so kids! I’d never gotten the ball before, why now?

I made it a total of about two to three yards before I was piled upon like a solitary meatball in the bottom of a bowl of spaghetti! Ouch! Guy ended up being someone at the school everybody else in the male hormonal department either respected or were scared of. What’s really strange is how he chose to befriend me after all that intimidation and watching me make a complete idiot of myself! He came by the house one day when I was out in the front yard after school and asked, “Do you steal?” I had never stolen a thing in my life, but I was sure going to try to look as tough as I could in Guy’s eyes so I said, “Yeah, do you”?

(W. Broad St. Hilltop USA Google Earth)

So off to the store we went! I was now officially making my first move toward becoming a common thief! We went to a store on W. Broad St. that was called Gray’s Drug Store, they've since built a Family Dollar store on the spot. They had a candy Isle and my new gangster buddy and I took some candy! He must have filled his pockets with 10 or 12 candy bars! I on the other hand “stole” one solitary Milky way bar! I thought that would prove I could be a tough guy too, but instead it appealed to his humorous side because he laughed about it all the way home.

The worst part was when I got home I still had the candy bar and my mom asked me where I got it and where the money came from to buy it? I was no good at lying and my mom saw right through it! She made me take the candy bar back to the store and give it back! What’s so crazy is I actually did it! I went in and told on myself and gave the man behind the counter the candy bar and told him how sorry I was! What the hell? I was now a coward, and a unsuccessful thief and a liar all rolled into one disgusting little package! I really wasn't sorry and the next time I went into the store I did it again, was caught and asked never to come into the store again unless my parents were with me.

It seemed I was no good at anything and just did not fit in no matter how hard I tried. I was no good at football, I always sprained my ankles! I wasn’t very good at even catching the thing! Basketball wasn’t my cup of tea either, I looked good but the stupid ball just would not go into the bucket for me! I wasn’t very good at stealing so it seemed I was destined to play little silly games like building makeshift toy planes or running around in the yard acting like I was flying. I also did the “Fort building” thing I got into with a select group of nerds like me! We even went on to jump ramps with our bicycles until that also ended in injury for me. I was taking saxophone lessons, and sax was O.K. but it wasn’t real interesting to me, besides the horn was almost as big as I was!

My uncle Vernon (Dad’s youngest brother) came by one day and had a guitar. He put it in my hand, showed me how to hold the pick, put my fingers on the neck and in the frets to change tone and pitch. I knew then that this was the beginning of an affair that would not likely end any time soon. This first physical encounter with a real guitar came to me in a open E and chorded by barring across the frets. I would shortly learn from my Great-grandmother Carrey Newsom (Mother-Lady) how to produce chords in standard 440 tuning.

L to R 1st son Junie, Myself, Mom, Gran and Mother Lady

4. Slip, Dip or Trip?

SLIP, DIP, OR TRIP?

 

Highland Ave. Elementary School

            So here I was in my very first fight in Columbus Ohio the City of my birth, on my very first day of school with Martin Fields. I was going through the motions, but my heart wasn’t in it by a long shot, in fact I was pretty scared to say the least! There was so much noise and yelling and what’s worse everyone seemed to be happy about it and having a good time! All of a sudden life made no sense, and I was lost in it. I was totally at a disadvantage to this sort of behavior, God how I longed for the safety and sanity of Brezolles France! I was scared, but couldn’t show it and I wondered if they could see it?

I did wonder why I was scared after all this kid was smaller than me how bad could it be? The chanting got louder and we bobbed around each other like carnival clowns and all of a sudden BAM! A hit! Dead-Square in the right eye! MY RIGHT EYE! I didn’t cry, I was too embarrassed and ashamed of the fact that I knew I was not going to fight this kid under these insane conditions and as far as I was concerned it was over! I really didn’t want to fight at all! How did I get into this mess? I thought to myself, “I know, it was my parents entire fault”! Why did they bring me to a place like this? They must have known I wouldn’t fit in! How could they not know? I missed Madam and Annie Claude, I missed France.

The red X marks the exact location of the scrimmage. In the midst of my embarrassment and pain Dennis Walker stepped up to help things end out by saying, “Hey man he ain’t trying to fight nobody, he ain’t even from around here”! Eventually we started walking hearing all the slurs and taunts along the way. I was  making the best exit I could under the circumstances. Dennis walked with me all the way to my grandparent’s home where we were staying and there was a trail of little girls following, giggling, and making sport the whole way! I didn’t know it then, but I found out later they only give you that sort of attention when they like you or something! How backwards! I did not equate that with liking at all, I really thought they were just being mean! Well most of them anyway except for one little girl named Gail Weaver. She looked like she could be one of my sisters or cousins. I noticed that she maintained a sort of sadness while the others seemed to be having the time of their little lives at my expense.

84 S. Oakley rear view

The closer we got to my grandparents home the more I started to think about how my mom was going to react. Then I really started worrying about what was going to happen when my father got a load of me and my big black eye! Yeah, I had a bloody nose once from getting punched in Rantoul Illinois and I acted my way around that one, but I had never had a black eye before! And by a little guy at that!

We reached my grandparent’s house and everyone separated silently and let me maintain at least a small degree of dignity! I guess they could have been loud and ribbed me all the way until I got to the door, but they gave me a break of sorts and I was relieved that they did! Now when my mother came to the door and opened it I saw the look on her face change from her average to a look of panic! “Oh my God boy what have you gotten yourself into”? She grabbed me by the shoulder part of my jacket and pulled me into the house to give me the third degree.

In the process of being drilled by my mother on how to be more Christ-like and thereby avoid the pitfalls and vices of society, my Grandmother went about her usual routine of cooking and setting things up for dinner as if nothing were out of the ordinary. My younger brother Timmy however took a totally different approach to the situation and seized the opportunity to rub my nose in the fact he knew I got beat up! He watched as my mother was questioning and preaching with a look on his face that almost screamed, “You got your butt kicked”. Then he let out a loud laugh and sang, “You got your butt kicked, you got your butt kicked”! “What a little prick”, I thought to myself.

“He’s in with them, and he’s supposed to be my little brother”! I reasoned later down the road that maybe that was his way of getting around the embarrassment for me.

(Timmy)

Fortunate for me it had all died down by the time my dad got home. I stayed upstairs in my room to avoid him.

I knew then that I was in a world of crap and I reasoned as best I could that I was going to have to live with it and make a comeback somehow! I had big dreams about how I’d be a big deal at my new school and in these United States. But obviously I slipped in my thinking, failed to dip when the punch came, and inevitably tripped over the leg of ego to my own disadvantage at least for the time at hand! Things were about to get really hot and busy on the Hilltop of Columbus, OH and I never thought I’d turn out to do some of the things I did, but I did! Some good, but many not so good.

3. It's On..!

“IT’S ON”

When we returned to Columbus OH. From Rantoul Illinois we lived temporarily at my Grandparents house at 84 South Oakley Ave. My grandfather was from a farmers type environment in North Carolina and maintained large gardens on the outskirts of the County as well as the one he had at the residence. He had this work ethic thing instilled in him and he was going to make sure we, as grandchildren applied it to our own perspective logic.

The yard was big, and full of fruit trees, well there were 3 pear, 2 cherry and an apple tree on the property along with the garden. Then too there were all the trucks and tools he used in his trade which happened to be “The Jack of All” according to my dad’s description. My dad was an accountant in the Air Force and maintained that in order for one to be proficient at a vocation one must master it by devoting the majority of ones time to the practice of (1) chosen profession above all other interest. These two conflicting mandates from two of the most admired men in my life painted a picture of rivalry in my mind at the time and would in later years affect the relationships between siblings and parents alike!

84 S. Oakley 2016

Over the years it seemed to have fostered the individual attitudes amongst family members that, “My perspective view and outlook is more adequate and socially acceptable than yours”, so to speak! In time I would learn what the word “dysfunction” meant and how it would play its part in my life. It took many years to come to terms with the realization and that understanding came at cost!

(ENTER) Highland Avenue Elementary School

It was time for me to get back into the school system after a long winter absence and summer vacation. I had envisioned that my dad would take me and walk into the classroom to introduce me to the teacher to set some sort of psychological precedent that might make other students admire or respect me! As it turns out that was only a child’s day dream or fantasy! The fact is I walked into a classroom like I had never seen before!

Remember I came from almost (5) years in France to live in "back water" Rantoul Illinois! In Rantoul the racial balance was the typical few air force black children and in 1963 Hispanics were very sparse and where mostly Mexican. No need to say there was a  much larger proportion of white children by comparison almost 9:1. The truth of the matter is I was never conditioned to see anything other than what I saw and when I walked into that classroom at Highland Ave.  everyone was black accept for the teacher herself, and a wee little tiny withdrawn white girl who had eye problems and was dressed in what seemed to be 1940's type attire!

She was really out of place and so was I! I came to school wearing short pants, a smock top and beetle type boots, but what makes it so much worse was that I had on long checkerboard socks! Needless to say, all the kids got a big laugh off on me, but it really didn’t bother me at the time because I had no idea what the heck they were laughing about other than maybe the way I wore my hair, or more importantly the fact that I was laughing along right with them!

When the laughter was over Mrs. McCarley (the teacher) asked me to find a seat. The only two seats available were about in the middle of the classroom.

No one was laughing anymore, instead they seemed to all look very mean and sinister to me! I had to walk through a narrow corridor of seats occupied by very mean looking kids and felt surrounded in the center of the room. On the way to my seat I was asked by three different boys if I thought I could beat them? Dugh! They were talking about fighting and I just got there! My answer was to the first, second and third a resounding NO! After all, they were to me pretty scary looking characters!

Then, they turned and pointed at this little small skinny black kid named Martin Fields and asked almost in unison, “Think you can beat him”? Well I had already eaten crow to the tune of three bigger scarier looking kids so I felt I had to be able to “beat” somebody! This kid was so small but he had his lips pursed and nose flared open as if to suggest I better say no. Silly me! I said, “Well yeah”!  The next thing I hear is the classroom burst out into a sound that went something like this; Whooooooooooooooo”! What had I done?

Now I was scheduled for a fight with this kid after school and didn’t even understand why, or how! I reasoned that I had watched every Elvis movie made to date and I could take him, after all we really weren’t going to fight it would all just be an act and we’d just go through the motions and put on a good show, at least I would not have to fight a big kid!

School let out and everyone made sure to remind me about my appointment with Martin Fields especially Dennis Walker the main instigator who was supposedly also on my side to hear him tell it! We walked out to the fight tree a half block from the school in front of a big old Baptist church and Martin dropped his books to the ground, lowered his head, poked out his bottom lip and raised his dukes! All of a sudden he didn’t look so small anymore! There had to be about 15 to 20 kids gathered around and more were coming, good God what the heck? This just couldn’t be happening! What’s worse is there was not one single white person anywhere to be seen! I was the whitest spot in the picture, and I wasn’t even white!

Kids were yelling, “fight, fight, fight…” Martins fist were bobbing up and down to the rhythm of the shouts in perfect sync, and I was petrified! I reasoned I’d better do my Elvis routine and salvage what social dignity I might, so I slid out of my jacket and went into my act, I tried to talk my way out of it and that showed no results other than to get me in deeper, so up went the dukes to defend myself from this little skinny kid who thought he was going to best me! Dennis Walker was trying to encourage me by saying “don’t worry about it man, you can beat him”!

2. The Return To America

THE RETURN TO AMERICA 

We left France in December of 1962 just after Christmas. All of the Christmas decorations were up in the village and in the village square. My father got the news of the transfer just days before Christmas so Madam and her family were taken by surprise. They had come to regard me as their own and rightfully so from their perspective. I basically lived with Madam Lebudec, and Annie Claude was like a sister to me. When they got the news we were leaving for the States Madam was devastated. Crying and sobbing she asked my mother if I could stay with them in France. Needless to say my mom couldn’t do that and told her that she would make sure I wrote often and that Annie Claude could come to the states to visit from time to time, also that there could be provisions made for the whole family to come on visits. That didn't happen.

We got back to the U.S. in late1962 just before the New Year and were picked up at port Columbus by my mom’s dad (my grandfather) who I will always know as and refer to as Poppy! He took us to his house on the Hilltop in Columbus Ohio where we would stay until my father received his orders to report to his new duty station in Rantoul Illinois. Which by the way is the exact house I'm writing this biography from now in 2016. My office/studio now occupies the room my Mom and 2 Aunts shared as little girls and young ladies.

(Poppy 1969)

Aside from myself my mother and father had 3 other children I was the first and eldest, then came Timothy (1957), Tina (1960), and Alice (1962). Tina and Alice were born in France and to this day still have the option of invoking French citizenship, or a dual citizenship if they choose. I was born in Columbus OH. And my younger brother Tim was born in St. Louis MO. just before my dad was stationed in France in that we got the short end of the stick!

(Timmy 1965)

(Tina 1968)

    (Alice 1965)

      

I had never really been in a fight until I came back stateside and I was somewhat at a loss when it came to communicating in English being that French had become my basic language and culture. I really felt out of place and a little dense even though I was academically advanced by the standards of the American school system I was still a little Frenchie and not adjusting to the American way of life as rapidly as was required by my teachers and peers.

                                             (Me, Timmy and Tina 1962 Brezolles France)

I recall my first bloody nose! it happened while stationed stateside in Rantoul Illinois. A boy was over in the field across from my house at the mud hole pond where I usually played alone and was standing on a little makeshift bridge I put together a few days previously. I went over to say hello and I was in the process of telling him how I made the bridge when he socked me right square in the nose! It really hurt something awful and the blood just kept coming and drenched my shirt! He just walked away in his beetle type boots combing his hair like Elvis and I scampered across the street trying to look like I had a big fight and it didn’t bother me! I felt like I had to at least act strong and courageous and hold my shoulders up or people might think I was weak and timid! This happened in about August of 1963 and would be the starting point of forming my new attitude toward life along with my fall into prejudicial views based on the fault finding characters of others in my surroundings. In other words I would come to learn backwardly that violence created respect by fear and intimidation.

I became more aware of the jealousies peers exhibited over things as minute as the belongings of others. Even if I shared my things with them in most cases that wasn’t enough! I was seeing the American way through the eyes of a socially displaced child. Even though my parents should have seen they did not because here unlike France there was very little time left to notice these things especially by my young parents. Besides, they had three other small children to deal with. I was the oldest and it seemed I was going to get into things and just have to deal with them on my own the best way I could. Now by comparison Rantoul, Illinois was heaven compared to Columbus, Ohio. I was going on 9 years of age, in the 3^rd grade and on my way to a new set of circumstances in a culture on the verge of racial explosions.

Hello, Highland Ave. Elementary in Columbus OH. Now had come the time that would prove me to be a “punk” or a “man” in the day of racially militant attitudes, Yeah me, a little mixed hi yellow almost white but not quite person! Highland Ave. Elementary and our house at 212 Wheatland Ave. was dead center of one of the largest all Black communities of the 1960’s! My nickname was white boy!

1963 Me!

1. Moving to France

Moving to France

 (84 S. Oakley 1958)                    

(Rue de Tillieres 1959)  

         

I was born in Columbus Ohio in 1954 to Edith G. Bowers and Leonard W. Bowers. I was named after my father so that makes me Jr! My father was in the Air Force when I was born and stationed somewhere near St. Louis Missouri because we live there around some of his brothers (my uncles) and their families from shortly after I was born until about 1958 when my baby brother Timmy was born. I can remember events as far back as my second year of life and have very vivid memories of my third year on this planet. Although I love my parents very dearly I must say that I wasn’t fortunate enough as to hail from a family that was vise free partially because my parents married young and still had a degree of party spirit going on! I heard words in slang and profanity from my father's friends that could make a sailor cringe and I was employing them in conversation as early as my third year of life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not doing the victim thing here I’m just saying that when you’re in certain circles things of the nature of your placement are bound to happen sooner or later and the choices we make are sometimes affected by the stimuli we encounter in our early development as children. Some good, some not so good, but you got what you got and you did what you did

(so to speak)!

My brother was born in August of 1957  in St. Louis and named (Timothy Leon Bowers). Well now things begin to spin! My dad was then transferred to Brezolles’ France and based at Druex Air Base in France. My mom, brother and I moved there shortly afterward. The small village of Brezolles’ was nothing like back in the States and people there never used vile language instead it was quite the contrary. Everyone as I can recall showed immense love and exemplary common courtesies not so common in our society even back in the 1950’s.

Dreux -Louvilliers Airf Force Base by M.M.Minderhoud or Wikipedia/Michiel1972

(Courtesy of Google Earth)

We lived at 15 Rue de Tillieres pictured above. This is the actual physical location of where I lived from 1958 to 1963.  I was placed in base schooling, but I didn’t get along well with the other American kids because I could out cuss them without even trying. My mom came up with the bright idea that I may do well in French Catholic School so that’s exactly what happened. I learned the language really fast and I had a lot of help from the Madam Lebudec and family because that’s who I was with five days a week being that my mom was working on the base in the Affex. So in essence I became a little French boy and since no one understood my vulgarities in my native tongue I soon lost interest in using fowl language and began the more eloquent approach to interacting in my new social environment. I must say the French were excellent teachers and for them that was just part of a basic service to mankind in general.

American GI’s from the base would sometimes find their way to the village and scare people with their drunken behaviors and womanizing predatory type actions. It’s safe to assume that the political minded French wanted them gone despite the economy and dollar exchange of the day. They tolerated and endured this sort of behavior largely due to the liberation by American troops during the Second World War.

I started in French schools at the age of four in 1958. By the time I was seven years old in 1961 I had the equivalent of an American 7th grade education. School hours were different there, and there was no summer vacation instead we had occasional breaks so we never got to far off track and had very little time for mischief. There wasn’t a lot of jealousy over belongings or clothing because everybody whore the same thing. We wore grey or light blue smock type uniforms. The girls wore skirts and the boys wore shorts. Can you imagine wearing shorts in mid winter?

(Courtesy of Google Earth)

This is the physical location of entrance to the courtyard of the Catholic school I was placed in shortly after my arrival in 1954. I would attend French public school from 1959 to 1963. It was here in the Christmas of 1958 I would meet a Santa so unique in character the memory would last a lifetime.

Christmas was a really special time of year in France, Santa Clause there is called “Father Christmas” or “Pare Noel” in the French language. Madam had two daughters; Soline the eldest, and Annie Claude who was a year older than me and was also my best friend. Much like Forrest, Forrest Gump we were like peas and carrots. I had pictures of Annie Claude and Soline that were sent back with me by Madam, however after my Mother's departure from this plain of existence my sisters laid claim to all memorabilia and it would do me very little good to ask for cooperation at this phase of life. The picture as to why my lack of relationship with my sisters exists I think may be painted at some point in this story.  There is so much about my time in France to reflect on in memories, and in the overall view it was all good to me.